


Homemade Dynamite

by sovery



Series: Twist and Twine [3]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Muggle, F/M, Female Harry, Female Harry Potter, Santorini, Tom has so many issues and most are to due with his unhappy childhood, if you could tag for general creepiness i would
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-05
Updated: 2017-10-15
Packaged: 2018-12-11 15:56:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11717637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sovery/pseuds/sovery
Summary: Non-magical AU where everyone is not as they seem, and on holiday in Greece for some reason.





	1. I'll give you my best side, tell you all my best lies

**Author's Note:**

> I have no explanation.

Potters sometimes inherit unfortunate names. Still, things could be worse, Harrie thinks; she could be a Dursley. Let it not be said that Henrietta Lily Potter, daughter of James Fleamont Potter, granddaughter of Fleamont Henry Potter, for whom she is named, is a complainer. At least, not in earshot of her beloved and loving parents, who are only too happy to loudly recount the ‘thrilling’ tale of how James had one gotten into a fistfight in order to defend ‘his family’s noble name’ and accidently met Harrie’s mother.

There is little she can do in those situations but groan, bury her face in her hands, and mutter than at least she hadn’t pretended her middle name was Lancelot. But because her mum and dad are only doing it because it annoys her they come down with a temporary case of deafness. It’s the sort that sometimes afflicts Hermione’s parents, too. Harrie cannot be sure that Ron’s parents aren’t actually a little deaf – not after raising seven children, three of whom are Actual Terrors.

But because she is in Santorini and thus far, far away from her mum and dad, Harrie can complain however much she damn pleases, which is more than usual, more than is polite, but she’s a bottle of wine and three tequila shots in so who the fuck cares.

Not Pavarti or Lavender, that’s for fucking sure. She’s pretty sure they started making out with each other, cutting through some sexual tension she’s been pretty much oblivious to, but as happy as she guesses she is, she’s mostly a little pissed that she has no idea where they are, or when they’re going back to their resort.

She curves around dancers and takes a breather in the queue for the ladies – it’s late enough that half of the stalls have probably been ruined with someone’s sick by now. She hums and sways.

***

Some minutes later she’s back in front of the bar and too sloshed to give a damn about relatability. Her parents taught her better but goddamn if she’ll be drinking bottom shelf liquor at this point. Her godfather, at least, would be proud. Proudish. Probably.

The fucker who apparently needs to make sure his drink order is just so is taking too long, some tall dark bastard in a fancy suit. (It’s damn sure not Topshop.)

And, you know, excuse her if she sighs and taps her foot a little. And rolls her eyes when he turns around slowly to meet her impatience with an expressionless expression meant to convey how unamused or what the fuck ever and so she says

“Hi,” cool as you please and he asks

“Am I keeping you from something, miss?” and curls his lip just so. It’s too full for that face – too sensual. Luna’s an artist. She’s allowed to think shit like that. Harrie isn’t.

“My drink, probably” she says. “It’s that time of night – morning.”

The bartender looks a little ill, and glances between them as though they’re going to brawl or something stupid like that. Honestly.

Her confrontational suit narrows his eyes at her and speaks Greek (modern – not her sort) to the bartender and walks away without so much as a backwards glance at her.

Pity - she’s in a mood. Harrie’s too emotionally stable to date assholes but she’s not above sleeping with one on a Greek island.

“Hendricks, please” she says, “with only a little tonic water and” she stands on her tiptoes and braces herself on the counter to glance behind the bar, “um, three orange slices please.”

She makes a point of accepting it without complaint an in exchange for twenty euro, no change, thanks.

***

After fishing out another twenty euro from her bra to pay the cab driver, Harrie stumbles into the lobby and takes off her shoes on the way to the elevator. A large, pale hand catches the door and it opens automatically. And who is it but her rude friend from Taboo?

She straightens so that when he arches a brow in her direction she looks at least a bit less sloshed than she is. She’s sobering up anyway – downside of a fantastic metabolism.

And because she’s not totally immature she keeps her mouth shut and scoots over. He glances at the list of buttons and inserts his keycard before pressing the button for the ‘executive floor’. Because of course.

It’s fine though, she doesn’t say anything. Until they start moving and he asks

“And did you get your drink, then?”

She turns to face him – and can’t quite read his expression.

“I did,” she allows. Waits a beat.

“If you’re looking for an apology,” she adds, “you’re going to be disappointed.”

He raises his eyebrows in surprise but gives a laugh at this.

“Not to worry” he says, “I’ve encountered enough stupidity today that the antics of a gap-year girl fail to rate.”

“I’m twenty-three,” she retorts, “and I never bothered with one anyway.”

“Chasing your wasted youth, then?” he suggests, as they stop on her floor.

“Don’t confuse our motives,” she says, sweet as can be.

He holds the elevator door for her as she steps off.

“Not a chance of that,” he promises. She turns back to look at him, secretly glad for the excuse. He regards her from under heavy-lidded eyes.

“What’s your name?” he asks, casual as can be.

“Why do you want to know?” she asks.

“Humour me,” he says, smiling, “and I’ll tell you.”

“Harrie,” she says. And when he raises a brow, she feels compelled to explain, though she usually just ignores people’s surprise. “It’s short for Henrietta.”

“Well, it suits you better, certainly,” he allows, still smiling. They pause. She wants to ask him why he asked for her name, but if he doesn’t answer it’s only going to make her feel stupid.

“And you are?”

“Tom, Tom Riddle.”

She narrows her eyes at him, allowing herself the full experience of that handsome face. The cheekbones, the lips, the cool blue eyes. She wavers.

***

He’s kissing her neck and palming her breasts and it’s good, really good, and she’s sighing and fumbling with his buttons but something is just a little off, and she glances down at him, his mouth on her skin, moist and hot and his eyes half closed and it takes her a minute and some embarrassment and then she shoves at his shoulders (surprisingly solid) and half-snarls in frustration and disgust.

“You’re not even into this.”

He looks at her in surprise.

“What – no,” he denies, he lies, and he must see that she sees because he lapses into something approximating exasperation. She shoves him onto his back (he lets her – she’s not a fool) but he grabs her wrist before she can push off him entirely and he’s hard and a little less polished.

“You’re bored,” she accuses him, tugging her wrist away.

“Not now,” he tells her, eyeing her chest and rolling up to her face. Whatever her face shows he seems to watch avidly, greedily even, but he’s already killed her mood at least.

“Um,” she says, articulate, tugging her wrist away. His hand tightens and for just a second she is afraid and she shivers. Her nipples peak, because of course they do.

“Harrie,” he coaxes, voice low and intimate, and a little rough. He runs a hand up her thigh and it flexes on her hip

“Tom,” she mimics, half spitting his name. His mouth twists, and then the rest of his face follows. It is the only lush part of it, she thinks, the only soft bit, no sweet, full cheeks or plump places to soften that hard and sculpted thing, just the lips. He’s too pretty, she tells herself. She doesn’t like pretty boys. (She doesn’t like the Draco Malfoys or Blaise Zabinis of this world – this boy – man – she does like – at least physically).

He’s hungry now and she absolutely shudders, melts, is suddenly, horrifyingly wet when he lunges up and breathes into her neck again and rolls his hips against hers.

“Clever thing,” he mutters against her. He slaps her ass, lightly (she yelps) rolls her under him his left hand squeezing her right hip tight enough to hurt, rolling against her again, more sharply. She gasps.

It ends up being the best sex she’s ever had.

**

The next morning she wakes earlier than she might have otherwise in an empty bed. As she blinks, slowly, she recalls the night before. Her mouth is dry.

She can hear the sink running in the bathroom. He was courteous enough to have kept the lights off and the blinds closed, but even so, the bright Mediterranean sun is creeping in from behind the heavy fabric. Harrie shivers, feeling a little dirty, but deliciously well-done.

Her phone had been in her bra and it ended up… on the floor. She’s feeling too lazy to get out of bed so she reaches for it awkwardly, which is of course when the door opens and she has to raise a hand to shield her eyes. Tom is silhouetted in the doorway, and waits a moment before responding to her artificially casual ‘morning’.

“Well, hello,” he says. It almost sounds like an innuendo.

She waits a beat, and then reaches again for her phone. Tries not to react when the sheet slips down and reveals her breasts. And then she sees that she has seventeen percent battery left, 4 missed calls from Parvati and remembers that she never let her or Lavender know where she went.

“Fuck,” she mutters, swiping it open.

“Something wrong?” he says, unconcerned.

“Just missed calls from my friend,” she tells him, typing out a message, and trying to control her flush. He isn’t wearing any clothes, any pants, and he’s walking closer.

 **Soz!! Went home with a guy in the same hotel, up on top floor back in a bit.** She hits send and checks the call log – all from the morning, to her relief.

“Hmm, I didn’t see you with anyone,” he says, sounding puzzled. She looks up at his face. You could hardly even tell that he hadn’t slept for more than a few hours.

“She and, um, my friend Lavender ended up getting together earlier on,” Harrie tells him.

He doesn’t make any sort of comment, and she likes that, and likes it even more when he leans down over her and puts his mint-clean mouth just above hers and mutters

“So they won’t mind if I keep you for another few hours, then.”

***

The sex is even better in the morning even if she’s actually quite sore by the end of it and he orders them a carafe of coffee and room service after, which they eat on his balcony wearing nothing but the hotel robes.

It’s all very indulgent, and especially nice because a small part of her expected him to kick her out of bed first thing in the morning. It’s fucking rude and it’s never happened to her yet but she thinks it would be embarrassing and hurtful all the same.

They talk idly, and she relaxes in his presence, loosening up like a cat in the sun. He’s here on business, but extended his stay to enjoy a bit of the summer. He doesn’t look older than thirty so she can’t imagine he’s climbed the corporate ladder. She doesn’t ask him what he does (she was raised better than that) but she speculates that he must have founded or inherited his own company.

“I’m a fifth year med student,” she explains, when asked. “Just on a holiday for the summer - after the last round of exams I needed the break.”

“And how long is that break going to last,” he asks, running his eyes over her. She shivers.

“A while,” she allows. “I only arrived two days ago and mmm,” he’s got a hand tangled up in her hair, wilder than ever after multiple bouts of enthusiastic sex, “my flight doesn’t leave for another week and a half or so.”

“Good,” he says, and she imagines she can hear the smile in his voice.

“Now, how do you feel about boating?” he asks. She cranes her neck back to look at him.

“I like it well enough,” she allows.

“A ringing endorsement, that.”

Harrie glances down again, “too much time spent with overenthusiastic, under-cautious friends,” she fibs. Fred and George might be maniacs but she doesn’t really regret the ridiculous voyage out to New Grimsby during one of their joint family holidays.

“If it’s any consolation,” he says, amused, “I won’t be sailing it myself. I’ve got a captain for that.”

Of course he’s got a fucking yacht, she thinks.  But then his mouth is on hers, and she decides she doesn’t care. She deserves to be a bit of a hedonist, and whatever he is doing to her definitely applies.  

It’s her justification when she agrees to meet him for dinner, and when she decides to wear silky, pretty thing that’s less casual than her usual attire. It’s what she tells herself when he greets her in a white shirt and dark trousers, looking like something out of a glamorous 50s movie, and when she accepts a flute of what she recognizes as very good champagne after they begin the short sail over.

It’s a summer fling, she tells herself, as he drapes himself around her back, deliciously close. What harm could it do?


	2. things come out of the woodwork

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> wherein things come out of the woodwork (awesome, right?)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about they delay! I have been working on other, non-fiction writing projects and also this was pretty damn difficult to finish considering that the penultimate scene was the first I came up with. General warning for general creepiness but if you like this ship then I assume you know what you're getting into. 
> 
> Also, I finished my final edits at midnight after three glasses of wine so do let me know if you spot a typo I've missed. X

It’s so easy to part with Parvati and Lavender. She already feels intrusive anyway, and they’re both such romantics they practically push her at him. It’s all a bit mad, and Tom is probably just a summer fling, but she hasn’t really dated anyone since year 11, and it wasn’t for lack of options.

He’s not even what she had thought she would like – but what is life without a bit of risk? She’ll need some scandalous stories for when she’s all old and boring anyway.

So one night becomes two, becomes a week of island hopping with him, all her hours suffused with his razor sharp wit, the delicious, hot sun, and the incredible sex they keep having.

She’s delighted to discover that like any other man or boy she’s slept with more than once, things get better as they learn each other’s bodies – and they were so good to begin with it’s almost unfair.

The morning after leaving Mykanos, he leaves her in the room they’ve both been occupying – his suits and shirts in the tiny closet and her sundresses and shorts spilling out of her suitcase, telling her he needs to make a call, looking admirably reluctant to leave.

Once he’s gone, she arches her back and rolls her shoulders, sighing.

Endorphins, she reminds herself. She’s known him all of a week and while she’s lucky enough not to have to work in the summer if she doesn’t want to, she _will_ be returning to Wadham come October.

But, her treacherous mind hints, while he might work in London, he evidently doesn’t need to be there in person. She sighs gustily and resolves to put off thinking about it

She calls her mother to chat, mmm-ing and ah-ing at appropriate moments during her rant about proposed privatization which will supposedly save the NHS funding, but which her mother dismisses as another Tory plot. It’s soothing and familiar. Harrie doesn’t mention that she’s no longer with Parvati and Lavender. It nags at her.

After throwing on a bikini and twisting her hair up into something approximating a bun, she pads out in bare feet to look for him. Even though the staff make themselves scarce, she still feels a little weird sunbathing without him. There are only three of them, and none of them save the stewardess have even spoken to her, but even though she grew up rich, she didn’t grow up with servants.

Did he? She wonders. It’s sort of hard to picture him as anything but what he is. He’s never mentioned his family.  

***

At least once a day Tom wanders off for an hour or so, making calls or responding to emails or whatever he needs to go on holidays. His office is a funny cross between a manor-style study and a modern corner office, with the tell-tale curved walls of a ship.

He’s got a good collection of books though, even if most of them are quite boring, and so on Thursday she knocks, and finds the room empty. Odd.

His laptop is closed, and the desk is largely empty. She doesn’t think he’s in the lavatory.

The bedroom is empty, sheets made up, and she discards her wrap and her towel in favour of a terrycloth dress before she continues wandering.

She finds him on the bottom floor, where a dining room they never actually use is located, along with a few plain doors she doesn’t know the purpose of. He’s coming out of one of them right now.

“Tom?” she asks, tilting her head to the side. If she’s surprised him, he doesn’t show it.

He smiles at her as he locks the door.

“What’s in there?” she asks, curious.

“Oh, nothing terribly exciting,” he says, with a shrug of his shoulders. His polo fits them like a glove. “A sort of second office.”

“Why do you need two offices?” she laughs. He inclines his head.

“One’s for work,” he says, catching her gaze and slowly pushing her up against the wall of the cramped hall. She is only too happy to go and barely manages catches her sigh when he pushes up against her because she does, after all, have some pride. “And the other,” he says, his lips on her neck and his hips pressing into hers, “well, that one can be for pleasure.”

One large hand on the curve of her back presses her tightly against him as he takes a step forward and she moves backwards, down the hall until the reach the stairs and he kisses her and takes her to the study she’d just been looking for him in, and she rides him in his stupid, posh office chair, laughing and breathless.

His hands dig into her hips and then one on the back of her neck, almost aggressive, and she shudders in delight before he thrusts up once, twice, thrice, until she can’t tell the difference between their movements and the subtle rocking of the Aegean Sea.

They are both breathing heavily, and he’s softened inside her when she asks

“That’s not really an office though, is it?”

His eyes focus on her though he’s still tilting his head back against the top of the chair. He sighs.

“Not exactly,” he says. “More of a storage room, really. It could have been used for something else but I only filled it with shelves, files, and the occasional spare suitcase. Nothing of note.”

He shifts under her, one arm tightening where it had rested loosely around her waist.

“It’s as much for security as convenience,” he adds. She can read between the lines – don’t go poking around, please.

 

The problem is, she’s the kind of girl who does.

***

She drinks too much champagne in the afternoon and he suggests she take a nap out of the sun, while he makes a few phone calls.

She dozes idly, conscious half-imagining turning to heady soft-lit wonder, her storybook-self in a red dress dancing down an imagined street at dusk, all cobblestones searching for something. She will find it up in a tower which is then a basement, a gothic dungeon with a sliding glass door and then -

She is woken by a sound so soft she thinks she imagines it – a dull, low sound. Like a wounded animal, she thinks. But that must be wrong.

All the same, she props herself up on her elbows and frowns. The double-squeeze of her heart could have been the result of whatever dreams she was having turning bad. Still. She’s not usually one for nightmares.

The sky has gone mildly cloudy and she pushes her sunglasses to the top of her head, goes wandering, as soon as the momentary dizziness from standing too quickly leaves her.

She checks the bedroom they’re sharing, his office, the dining area they’ve only used twice. All empty. She wanders down the stairs to the bowels of the boat and finds herself back at the lowest level – back where Tom’s second ‘study’ is. She pauses a moment, and then walks to its door, not pausing to try the others. She twists it very gently, and then with slightly more force.

It’s locked. She cocks her head. It’s probably a sign she should leave it be. Instead she takes two steps lightly past the door and cocks her head, listening. She thinks she hears running water – perhaps from the bathroom at the end of the hall.

She retreats on little cat feet and waits at the end of the hall.

“Tom,” she greets him, grinning as he comes out, wearing a loosely tied bathrobe, the sort they normally have at hotels. His hair is wet – why had he showered? “I was looking for you.”

His smile is relaxed, almost languid.

“Good,” he says. “I’m almost done – I’ve got a few calls to make that shouldn’t be more than…mmm a half hour at the most. I wanted to tell you, though, something came up and we’re changing course to head back to Athens. We should be there sometime tomorrow at mid-afternoon.”

“Um, okay,” she says, a little surprised. It’s not as though he’s asking her permission. “I’ve got a friend from school who lives there I wouldn’t mind seeing.” It is true – Giannakis is working as an ‘artist’ back at his family’s villa. And he’s gregarious enough that even though they haven’t talked in six months he’d probably welcome her company. She doesn’t want to be waiting around, or feel abandoned while Tom does – whatever it is he’s doing.

Tom frowns. Does he want her with him or not? she wonders, feeling a little irritated, mostly with herself. She wishes she could just ask him what he wanted with her, or if he liked her.

He slings an arm around her shoulder, turning her and guiding her up the stair, pressing an open mouth to the back of her neck, exposed from her dark hair tied untidily on top of her head. She feels it, the sensation, and the pleasure of it, leaning back into him a little as they move.

“It will be a brief stop,” he says, or mutters.

“Hmm?”

“I just need to pick up some rubbish,” he says, “nothing to prevent me from taking you to dinner – have you been to Varoulko?” naming one of the nicest seafood restaurants in the city.

“Oh, er, yes, but not in two years,” she says, pausing on the stairs.

There is a pause – she senses he’s disappointed. And then he pulls her down a step and half turns her – and since when had she let anyone manhandle her? But then he is kissing her, hot and tasting a little like the sparkling water he favours and she surges into it. Moments later he breaks the kiss and squeezes the hand at her waist.

“Well I’ll take you somewhere new then,” he mutters. _There’s_ _no_ _need_ , she wants to say, or, _don’t_ _bother_ , or _why do you care if I’ve been we both like expensive seafood not everything needs to be new_ or – _something_. But she’s swept into senselessness as usual.

 

Athens is fine. The place they go may be even more overpriced, but the food isn’t quite as delightful. And she feels a little awkward with him in public, in a way she never has alone with him on his yacht. They are attracting too many glances. And she cannot guess why.

***

“Mind if I grab a book?” she asks, the day after they leave Athens. Normally she would just mess around on her phone, but they have no cell reception – Tom uses a satellite phone.

“Not at all,” he says, glancing up at her briefly as he boots up his laptop. She chooses a Martin Amis novel she read in school and makes for the bedroom they’re sharing. When the door closes she doubles back and listens carefully. It is entirely silent. Is it sound proofed? Yachts were built for the rich and powerful but surely _that_ wouldn’t be standard, she thinks, as she musses the covers on the bed they have been sharing.

Perhaps she’s becoming paranoid, she thinks, but it doesn’t stop her from grabbing hairpins, shoving them in the pocket of her terrycloth dress, and making for below deck.

She goes quietly but slowly. She does not meet any of the crew members, who are rarely around anyway. She contemplates the door, tries the handle, and then twists and bends the hairpins until she has a lock pick and tension wrench. Easy.

It is not a difficult lock to pick – only three tumblers.

Beyond it is another door. Two, her mind rapidly catalogues. Two doors to two cells made of clear glass and one occupied by a corpse with a bloody face and a dizzying variety of wounds.

She needs to leave. Some cold, mercenary part of herself directs her to close the door and pocket her hairpins and to run silently to the stairs, and to climb them slowly. On autopilot she makes her way to the bedroom to get – something. Her phone perhaps.

She pauses outside the door and smoothes her dress with trembling hands. She opens it, walks inside. A quick glance tells her the room is empty and she hurries to her holdall. She’s got a small tablet inside and she thinks (isn’t sure, of anything) she can turn it into a hotspot. Perhaps she can

Her mother is a force of nature. Harrie thinks she might be able to fix anything, even this. Perhaps. Though the man (corpse) will remain same as ever, dead as ever, only rotting, rotting even now.

She is on her knees now, a firm press of them into the varnished wood of the floor and she’s jamming the button and it won’t turn on, idiot, she has forgotten to charge it, and there is a knock at the door and she looks up in surprise. Tom is there, shutting it behind him. The door.

“Hello Harrie.” His voice his quiet. His posture is threatening. “Enjoy your little jaunt?”

She stands. Her jaw is so tight it could snap in two.

She’s always covered up her fear with anger and bravado. Even with the rapid and persistent thud of her heart in her throat she’s true to form.

Everything seems sharper and little details jump out to her the clock on the wall 14:02 the antique sword cane thing above the door how casual Tom’s expression is and how cool and blue those eyes are – he looks like a model in a summer cologne advert, finished in high gloss. Not like an arms dealer. Not like a murderer.

“If only you had read your goddamn book,” he says, his voice low. It’s hard to tell what he might be feeling as he advances a few steps closer.

“If only you hadn’t felt the need to,” she falters, “kill people.”

He cocks his head and curls his lips into something approximating a smile.

“Funny.”

“I don’t think murder is particularly funny,” she says, because what else can she say. Or do. They are far away from land and far away from any other boats. Even if she could get past him and into the water what then? Bullets would put an end to her even before she could drown from exhaustion.

“I do,” he tells her, and smiles to see her eyes widen. When he steps close again she backs up even though she had told herself she should stand her ground.

Fingers to his eyes, she reminds herself. And three crew members to avoid – two of them large men. Her back is to the wall.

“Honestly, Harrie,” he begins, another step forward, “he was no great loss.”

Nameless and with his face ruined she hardly supposes he would think so.

“Now,” he begins, another step closer, trailing off until

he reaches for her gently.

She fights like a hellcat.

A slap to the large hand coming for her neck a fist to his chest when his other hand nears her chest as he takes a step back to steady himself eyes glinting when he grabs her right wrist she twists her arm in a circle dislodging it and pushes against his chest again one foot braced on the wall of the cabin behind her

now he looks

excited. Thin–lipped he’s got her left shoulder (she tried to move past him) another hand she lets herself slump to the floor so he loses his grip and jerks back with her elbow, again, a hit, again, and his arm like iron around her ribcage brings her up against him, she struggles to get her heel between his legs and all the while wiggling as he struggles to hold her until finally she screams, uselessly, her heart might explode.

“Calm down,” he snaps, he doesn’t sound calm

She gasps for another breath and struggles yet more fiercely.

“For _fuck’s_ sake.”

He hoists her up but she’s tall and not easy to move if she doesn’t want to be moved even if he’s taller and stronger and knows how to kill people and it’s only a minute before he’s wrestled her onto the bed face down. She struggles to breathe and feels him hoist himself up and push down at the base of her skull heart beating even faster one second becomes how many how long will it take? Her lungs ache and then the pressure abates and

Relief. She lunges up a mockery of a yoga pose, gasping for breath.

He’s knotting her wrists together with something and kneels over her, mouth almost flesh with her ear.

“I didn’t want to have to do that,” he says, almost tenderly.

“Get off me,” she croaks.

He eases a hand beneath the side of her face and the sheets and lifts until her neck is twisted painfully and she can see him where he has leaned to her left side. He has marks from her nails on his neck – when did she leave those?

“Listen, Harrie,” he says, “I’m hardly going to feed you to the sharks.”

She is trembling very finely and doesn’t care to try to stop and when he reaches for her shoulder she snaps.

“Don’t touch me!” still sucking in lungfuls of air.

“Suit yourself,” Tom says. She hears him moving and scrambles to roll herself over onto her side, draws her knees in and levers herself up, kneeling on the bed and watching him with wide, wary eyes where he stands at the foot of the bed, bracing himself against the frame. He rubs a hand over his unshaven face.

This morning she had thought him handsome – he had scratched the inside of her thighs with it. And smirked after, when she had asked him if he wasn’t going to shave.

“There will be hell to pay if I go missing,” she hisses, still breathing heavily, drawing on anger and the overwhelming sense that she must not die. “My mother’s an MP and-”

“And I’ll be running Westminster within a decade or so,” he says, “but I did wonder when you were going to bring that up. Harrie Potter, daughter of Lily Evans and heiress to the Potter fortune. I suppose you think I actually give a damn how much money you have, as though _that_ ever saved anyone.”

She blinks. What the actual fuck?

“We’re not that rich,” she says, stupidly, and he rolls his eyes, cutting her off before interjecting

“Well you’re not the Malfoys or the Bobbins,” he says, sneering, “but all the same, I can’t imagine _you’ve_ ever gone without.” There’s something off about the inflection but she can’t focus on it.

“And what do you mean you’re going to run Westminster.” She prays he monologues.

“Everyone’s corruptible, darling, in case you hadn’t noticed.” Not everyone, she thinks.

“Half of them are eating out of my palm – or campaign contributions anyway, it’s the same thing, and plenty of them will lick my boots and vote me leader as soon as I tell them I want a constituency,” he sneers.

“You’re fucking _insane_ ,” she hisses, trying to rotate her wrists behind her back and get them out of – one of his ties?

He looks wild.

“Sanity, if you want to call it that, it just a word the mediocre use to characterize their pathetic hopes for the future.” He gives a short exhale, clear blue eyes glittering, those comically good-looking features far more sinister than she’d imagined they could be.

“I have better ideas, and the will to make them happen. And Barnabas Cuffe is very fond of me,” he says, naming the man who owned the majority of the UK’s papers.

It’s just _ludicrous_ , but she thinks of his boat and his picture with the Party Whip that Lav sent her – he was someone, and no one else realized what a maniac he was (unless they did, unless they didn’t care) and

Incredulous, she asks, stupidly. “So what, you toss me overboard and the Tories look the other way? I don’t think money can get people to stop caring about _murder_ –

“Oh, you’d be surprised,” he assures her, and her heart stops, and then he lunges forward and it startles her and then she’s unbalanced herself and tilted back and he’s climbed onto the bed again and is leaning over her, a large, too warm hand pressed over her breastbone, one long finger curling, bruising her collarbone and her hands and wrists are trapped and aching beneath her body, a parody of their early morning missionary.

She’ll bite his fingers off if he tries to smother her. 

He smiles at her – as if he likes it, and likes how scared she is, how incredibly terrified and angry, angrier than anything else. She could burn the boat, the sea, the world to bits. And he says

“But don’t worry,” a twisted smile, “I don’t need to dump you in the ocean. Not even close. You and I, Harrie, we’re going back to Little England.”

“Then what do you think is going to happen?” she asks, incredulous. “I forget everything I saw and go back to school?”

“I’m so glad you asked,” he says, with that smile that said he knows exactly how clever he is.

How had she _ever_ found that attractive?

“You’re going to remember exactly what happened, and exactly what I’m capable of doing, and go back to school, and if you so much as breathe a word to anyone, I’ll ensure that your friends die slowly and painfully.”

She is incapable of speech. 

“Well,” he amends, “one of them will, anyway. I’m not quite sure the other will be capable of feeling anything at all, what with the coma.”

“What,” she says, faltering. What coma?

“All those criminals, with their drugs,” Tom says, shaking his head. “Such a shame that Britain’s young people are so vulnerable to their wicked influence. Some die, and some end up brain dead.” He shrugs, cruel and mocking. “One of your little friends is going to be among them- personally, I’d think the blonde would be likelier but I suppose you can choose, if you prefer.”

She looks at him in disbelief as he smiles back, cruelty more than evident.

“If you like, you can decide which of them will be staying,” he says, almost offhand, voice filled with a false lightness. “It’s much more cost effective bribing doctors down here, and I expect that in her delicate state, moving the girl back up to England would be an unnecessary risk.”

“You couldn’t possibly,” she says, not believing the words as she says them. Numb. His smile is still wide – and a little mad.

“I have people _everywhere_ , Harrie, journalists, businessmen, politicians, and especially policemen. I’ll be more than capable of keeping tabs on you, and your various loved ones. And not to worry – Oxford isn’t so far away from London. I’ll be visiting.”

“No,” she says, horrified, confused – why bother – why not dump her in the ocean – she doesn’t want to die.

“Oh yes, you can be sure that I’ll be keeping a _very_ close eye on you. And if you so much as breath a word, write a text, or so much as hint in your secret diary what you know about me I can promise you that everyone you love – or everyone I think you love, or even like, or so much as smile at when you buy your fucking coffee, will die as painfully as I can contrive. And I keep people on payroll just for that sort of thing.” He’s breathing heavily now. 

She feels dizzy. She’s not breathing enough. Spontaneous oxygen deprivation – a textbook panic attack except utterly rational.

“No,” Tom says, lowering his gaze, a quick glance down but there is nothing there but her painfully contorted torso, perhaps nothing at all.

“It would be a pain to kill you,” he says, “and a terrible waste besides. You’re quite the wildcat, and what’s the point of scheming your way into being President of MedSoc if you never have the chance to suffer as a Junior Doctor? And besides, what was it your friend texted you the other day? ‘You’re so pretty together I want to die’? Well – I suppose she might, but we _are_ a handsome couple – ”

She thinks she might be sick.

“Don’t look so green, Harrie,” he says, sounding displeased. Then, lightening his voice, he adds, “I’m quite eligible you know – certainly more appropriate for a girl like you then that last boy you saw – the musician,” he scorns.

“You murder people” she points out, how can he think he’s more whatever, and what does it matter when she can hardly listen to anything but the thud of her heart, but it is bizarre, isn’t it, something about his line of questioning or stating or -

“Yes, and until very recently everyone who wasn’t a fucking _peasant_ did as well – you can be the ant or the boot, the mouse or the snake, but if you’ve been too cossetted until now, let me share something with you Harrie, that everyone should know by the time they’re your age, no matter how comfortable their lives – you will either be a victim, or make a victim of others – and if that means killing them, then so be it.”

They are both silent for a moment, and she closes her eyes. Opens them.

“That’s foul, and evil, and you’re pathetic,” she hisses at him.

He rises on his knees, the hand on her chest pressing down and then he puts another on her neck and then presses. She claws at him, digging her nails in, scratching at him enough to make him bleed but his mouth only twists and he continues fighting her until suddenly she stops.

Gasping in breath, eyes watering, she coughs. Shuts her eyes tightly but then feels him place a forearm lightly across her neck. And then again his mouth near her ear, feeling him and his breath and a presence she will never not be terrifyingly aware of.

“There is no good and evil.” He is also breathing heavily. “There is only power, and those too weak to seek it.” She opens her eyes and sees his face, now again as cool and remote as a statue of some cruel and disinterested deity.

He smiles then, a slight thing. The smile he gave her in the elevator. The smile he gave her in the hallway across from the room where he would dump a vaguely familiar body. The bartender, she realized, or assumed.

“So Harrie,” he says, raising his brow slightly, “what’s it going to be?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: And who is the dead bartender, darlings? I have no idea. Probably some mid-level criminal dude trying to get one over on the wrong man, or someone who had information which was tortured out of him. This was an utterly crack-ish episode (dark though, and not even funny, so is that a thing?) and that’s why I am going to end it here. Creating ridiculous AUs is a delight but creating deep psychological portraits of AU characters that manages to ring true to the source material is not. I’ll leave it to your discretion to decide whether or not Tom is going to keep his promise. I’d like to think it turns into a poorly plotted romance-novel with clichéd and fun to read but definitely not consensual sex galore, because that was basically the 80s, right?  
> But I couldn’t even manage that because undoubtedly the goodness and cleverness of James, Lily, and all the other (alive!) member of the Order of the Phoenix, as well as Harrie’s friends would have to win in the end, meaning Tom Riddle ends up dead or imprisoned. The idea of a criminal and crypto-fascist taking over the government is, I think, not a story I want to write at the moment. But have no fear! I have two other ridiculous AUs in progress, one a very 80s business-y one where people have shoulder pads and shit, and about five other WIPs so one way or another, I’ll have another female Harry Potter and Tom Riddle-esq character in an unhealthy relationship for your reading pleasure sooner or later.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [i left my pretense at home](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12733173) by [sovery](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sovery/pseuds/sovery)




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